My toddler (almost 3) bites at school and home
Hello,
I guess it's another desperate and confused post of a tired parent, but we truly don't know what to do anymore. I'm writing with a lot of emotion, so please excuse the structure.
Our child likes kicking, slapping, pushing, and worst of all: biting other people. It happens often with other children, commonly with us, and rarely with other adults. It is not constant; we can have calm periods almost without incident, but then, suddenly, it happens a lot. On top of this, he also likes to scream very high and loud for fun, which is very difficult to handle.
This behavior started about one year ago at nursery. The director invited us for a discussion to see if anything at home could explain it, but they found no clues after we explained how stable our home life is. Things got much better when he started school in March—his language improved and there were no signs of violence whatsoever. However, since yesterday, we suddenly got three complaints: one from the teacher and two from the after-school childcare.
When this happens at home, we try to explain calmly that it is wrong or we try to ignore him. But he continues, and when our tone of voice starts to change because we are upset, he finds it funny. We raise him completely without violence—no beating, minimal yelling, and using diversion techniques. He is an only child and we are both highly involved, so he is definitely not neglected.
We don't know what to do anymore, beside taking him to a psychiatrist, which seems overkill considering his age. Sometimes I feel I just want to smack or bite him back one big time just for him to understand that this hurts and isn't funny, but I feel horrible just by thinking about it and really want to avoid going to this step.
Any advice would be appreciated...Thank you (: